An excerpt from my Ph.D. dissertation on the concept of creative bureaucracy. Talk given in Vienna at the request of the Wirtschaftsuniversität's Public Policy research group.

1. The creative
bureaucracy
ideas on an oxymoron
Francis Gosselin

2. Aplan
Starting points
Bureaucracy
Creativity
Image : Kuan Yin, Nâga priestess, from "Hell Dorado".
Case study
Model

3. Starting points
Aims and objectives.
Acreative bureaucracy?

4. Starting points
A creative bureaucracy?
"Combining creativity and bureaucracy to develop a
new model of public sector governance"
Image : Funambules
Médias
An old question
Numerous disciplinary approaches
Recent (constant) economic / managerial
renewal

5. Starting points
Aims and objectives.
Paper structure
Clarify the notion of bureaucracy
Define creativity
Using case study, provide insights regarding
creative behaviour
"an exploration [...] providing insights into the various means
through which bureaucracies develop creative behaviour and
discourse, and how the bureaucratic nature of their activities
helps or impedes the development of these elements in an
ecology of interests and activities."

6. Bureaucracy
What this means
The "Franco-austrian" tradition
The anglo-saxon tradition
Public / private bureaucracies

7. Bureaucratie.
Public / private bureaucracies
What is bureaucracy and where does it apply?
Two strands : anglo-saxon / franco-austrian
Lines are blurry (cf. Crozier)
Aconfusion around the object leads to highly
differentiated conclusions
"the separation of administrative means is undertaken in exactly
the same fashion both in public bureaucracy and private
bureaucracy (for example in large capitalistic enterprises)"
- Weber (1921)

8. Bureaucratie.
The anglo-saxon tradition
A rational organization
Emphasis put on control
concl.: Taylorism / Fordism are "bureaucratic" (?)
Mintzberg's categories encompass public
office
Lead to New Public Management, etc.
Fail to recognize differences in motives,
purpose, duration.
--> when private organizations fail, they go bankrupt or
are bought off. Public offices are reformed.

9. Bureaucratie.
"Franco-austrian" tradition
A public service, rule-based organization
"The outcome of government"...
... even "bureaucratic rigidity" in firms the
result of govt. "meddling with business" to
"eliminate the profit motive" - von Mises
Grandguillaume, Thuillier [FR] point to
Weber, Crozier as mistaken
Atype of organization: order, continuity, duration
Atype of management: "bound to comply with
detailed rules"

10. Bureaucratie.
Bureaucracy both a type of (public)
organization and a method
"Bureaucratic methods" characterized by
detailed rules and regulation, set by authority.
Rules are ends in themselves.
Publicly-owned profit organizations are not
bureaucracies (although may be
bureaucratic: i.e. using rule-based methods)
"Franco-austrian" tradition (cont.)
A public service, rule-based organization

11. Bureaucratie.
What this means
bureaucracy + creativity
We look for a process (creativity) that aims at
"breaking the rules"
In a system whose primary characteristic is
that it is "bound to comply with rules"
How do these elements interact dynamically?
Who, is breaking what rules?

12. Image : Richard Reginald Young
Creativity
Three metaphors
Institutional change
Communities and subcultures
Atheory of deviance
Building "upwards"
What is creativity?

13. Something to do with novelty.
Can we designate it? Point towards it?
"these are not questions for economist to answer" (Frey &
Pommerehne, 1989)
Many definitions: creative cities, creative classes, creative
firms and creative people, creative groups, creative
communities, etc. etc. etc.
What are common grounds?
Creativity
What is creativity?

14. Start from the individual (a posture)
Creativity is: what happens when a piece of work is appreciated
by others in society - Csikzentmihalyi, psychologist
An attribute that one may earn, then lose
Involves others.
"One cannot be creative without learning what others know, but then one
cannot be creative without becoming dissatisfied with that knowledge and
rejecting it (or some of it) for a better way" - M. Csikzentmihalyi (1996)
Creativity
Building "upwards"

15. Creative individuals as deviants
Consider the norms, and make new ones (nietzschean?)
Deviance is constructed not by all of society, but by a
group.Asubgroup.A"community".
"the individual learns, in short, to participate in a subculture organized
around the particular deviant activity" - Becker (1963)
Creativity
Atheory of deviance

16. The question : how do you generate / tolerate deviance
in a setting "bound to comply with detailed rules?"
Create new rules!
Communities will exist - some formal, some informal.
They form and dissolve all the time
How does the institution manage them?
Creativity
Communities and subcultures

17. Levels of discourse: two conceptions of the
organization co-exist
-->Arule-based, simplified version
--> An 'heterarchic' ecology of communities
Public organizations are "sheltered". In many ways,
change "must" come from "inside".
Creativity
Institutional change

18. Joas (1991) uses metaphors: expression, production,
revolution
--> Parallel to Maslow (?): 'first order, second order,
integrated'
We focus on expression + revolution
Expression - bring out what is inside (the organization)
Revolution - process through which conflict is resolved
Creativity
Three metaphors

19. Bureaucracy
+
Creativity
Image :Aaron Diaz
"Changes first operate
at the level of praxis,
only then can they be
applied to values"
Crozier, p. 350

20. Image : Oscar Niemeyer The Council of Europe

21. Intergovernmental 'laboratory of ideas'; 47 countries from 12
initially
Aims to promote HR, democracy, rule of Law by drafting soft law
-->Anything (everything!) but Defence
--> Highly qualified, "top" experts in every field (as per FR customs)
Committee of Ministers,Assembly, etc. + expert committees
Focus on Secretariat (not ECHR, Commissionner, etc.)
Council of Europe
Introduction

22. Three phases:
1949-1989: 12 > 23 members, homogeneous, "workshop"
model
1989-2004: 23 > 47 members, heterogeneous, breadth of
functions, reform, etc.
2004-... : EU growth, identity crisis, limited resources, etc.
"There is obviously a great number of clashes between cultures here, culture taken in
the maximal sense. To me, that's a very positive thing" - Interview
Council of Europe
History

23. Council of Europe
Ayoung organization

24. Council of Europe
Some problems
The "glass wall" admin vs. operations
--> bound to comply vs. striving to change the world
Political leadership through agenda-setting by
Secretariat staff (Barnett & Finnemore, 2004)
Adiscourse of (top-down, political) reform
Even states do not act as one (Justice, Education)
Brings about a certain number of "conflicts"...

25. Council of Europe
Conflicts
Generational issues due to workshop system vs
modern practices
Hierarchy + 90s growth: lessened promotion
opportunities
Transversal movement of staff - less loyalty to sectors
Conservatism of middle-to-upper level management
regarding reform

26. A"polyarchic" model
Governing the underground
Bureaucratic heterarchy
Alaboratory of ideas

27. Alaboratory of ideas
Whether we respect the "laboratory of ideas"...
... or accept bureaucracy's role as a "problem-solving
agent"
The ecology of specialists must be made better use of
The question is, if management is inherently "bound
to comply to rules" (bureaucracy both as a type and
as a method)... what rules?

28. Bureaucratic heterarchy
Accepting communitarian nature of underlying organization
Rules to facilitate production of knowledge
"Bureaucracy" can "respect the rules"...
...while encouraging / allowing creativity
The strength of bureaucracy is to structure according to
rules...
... make rules for play, let the play get on.
Image : Leo Photophile

29. Governing the underground
Bureaucracy needs to review image of own inner dynamics:
Acommunity of communities
Multidirectional knowledge flows (complex issues)
Strong links with third party partners (leaks of strong ideas, loss for
the organization) - at CoE, by design
Once acknowledged, easier to connect with institutional
"underground"
No need to eliminate bureaucracy: change what rules are
significant.

30. Conclusion
Bureaucracies are public organizations managed by rules
Creativity is a process involving novelty, individuals and
subgroups using expression, production, revolution
There are different types of rules (rules about rules, for
instance)
We can imagine a bureaucratic system that limits the "binding
of management" by setting the scene, the "playground"

31. Thank you.
Contact :
Francis Gosselin
gosselin@unistra.fr
http://bit.ly/a6vgRH